


Reconciliation

by ReaderJane



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-24
Updated: 2010-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-13 08:41:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaderJane/pseuds/ReaderJane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy and Spike meet, post-Chosen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reconciliation

**Author's Note:**

> Setting: post-series  
> Written for the open_on_sunday prompt, "Open / Sunday"  
> Author's Note: this follows my earlier story, [Reunion](http://archiveofourown.org/works/135746)  
> Disclaimer: still not mine, alas.

Spike wandered through the liquor aisle, aware the clerk was eyeing him. He stayed in view so the man wouldn't try to watch him in the security mirror. The restless tapping that he couldn't quiet undoubtedly marked him: was he about to rob the til? For the fourteenth time he passed the sign in the window: open 24 hours, Monday through Sunday. He checked the clock again.

The door's bell jingled and his senses rang with it. Spike rehearsed his greeting one last time and turned, an apprehensive smile on his face.

The first thing he saw was her fist. That it wasn't followed by stars made him blink; since when had Buffy struck so lightly? But the woman before him was as tall as he, and dark-haired. She scowled.

"Dammit, Spike." Dawn clenched her teeth. "Why didn't you call to tell us you're alive? Dead. Undead. Dammit." She spun and stalked off toward the wall of refrigerators.

Buffy, who had been watching with her arms folded, stepped out of Dawn's way. She eyed Spike calmly.

"You want to hit me too?" he asked. _Hit me, love. Kick me, pound me, be angry. Be anything._

Buffy smiled gently and took a step closer. "Sometimes," she looked at the floor, "when you've come back from the dead, the last people you want to see," she halted a foot away. "Are the ones who are desperate for you to be back."

She looked back up and raised her eyebrows. He nodded, wordless. Buffy uncrossed her arms and laid her hand against his cheek.

Spike leaned into her palm. He could not have said which of them moved first, but the next moment his arms were around her and she was squeezing his ribs with that familiar power that made him glad he didn't need to breathe. Quick footsteps on the tile, and he was surrounded with Summers as Dawn galumphed into his back.

Dawn yelped when he reached behind him and lifted her into a piggy-back hold. Her long legs dangled, but she laughed and pounded his shoulder.

"You hit like a girl, Bit."

"Then why is your nose bleeding?" Dawn asked smugly.

His hands occupied, Spike tried to wipe his nose on the shoulder of his shirt. Buffy rolled her eyes and grabbed a box of tissues from the convenience store's shelf.

"So why did we need to meet in the only gas station in... what county is this? That's open on Sunday?" She crumpled the tissue and looked around for a trash can.

"Yeah," said Dawn from behind his head. "And where's the trap?"


End file.
